Newly Renovated Railroad Crossing Shopping Center

I posted about this renovation awhile ago but was unable to find the post to link it here. These three units are quite nice and are a big improvement, and they already have a tenant in Nanuccios which I have tried and can say its quite good!

The place looks great don't you think?

Remodeling Project Takes Shape in the Downtown

The last few months have seen a nice remodeling project taking place in our downtown as you can see by the before and after pictures there is a big improvement! Also contractors will be starting on the new facade for the Millennium sometime in January.

They have 3 units available. 1,600 sf, 2,600 sf. and a 3,800 sf. unit, they can subdivide the 3,800 sf. unit as well if needed. They have some really nice features in the units including fully insulated walls & ceiling for energy efficiency, professionally painted dry-wall, and cherry wood stained trim. Each unit also has all new plumbing, and HVAC.

They have a contractor on site for anyone who needs to do a build-out and does not have a contractor. This could save them time looking for a contractor and possibly save them money on their build-out. Want some information on the project contact Lori Cole.

Going Going Gone!

Tearing down the old Public Works and police storage facility near the village hall, which completes the three buildings along Cedar Lake from the village hall to the train station.

We wanted to have a clear view of the boxcars parked at the station from the village hall!

It amazing how fast they can take down a building!

Taping of Comcast Newsmakers

Earlier this week I taped a Comcast Newsmakers show which is a daily five-minute interview segment which airs at :24 and :54 minutes past the hour on CNN Headline News sponsored by Comcast. It was a lot of fun and a nice opportunity to talk up your community and the issues surrounding it. The show is hosted by veteran, award winning news anchor Paul Lisnek. Who definitely made me feel good about the whole process.

Naturally I talked about three things, transportation, hospitals and economic development, with a little bit about this blog thrown in for good measure. The whole process was quite efficent and the 5 minutes went by quickly as well.

Many thanks to Gwendolyn McNutt, Comcast Community Affairs Manager, Paul Lisnek for making me feel comfortable and Frank Deuel, Comcast Government Affairs Manager for being helpful as well.

I am not sure when they air, but when I find out I will let you all know! You get to some fun things as a Mayor and this was certainly one of them!

Mayors Speech Today at the Chamber of Commerce

Today is the Annual Mayors Speech at the Round Lake Area Chamber of Commerce. I have used this forum in the past to talk about the big picture needs of this area. Some of my topics that I spoke about have been the need for jobs in the area, the pressing need for transportation improvement, Downtown development, the 120 Bypass and of course lasts years call for a hospital in Northwest Lake County.

The themes of my speeches has basically outlined my big goals for my administration, and this year will be no different. I am going to talk about how our demographics have changed, give a status report on the 120 bypass, talk about Advocate Health Care, my wellness and community programs, and lastly our 100th Anniversary celebrations. The biggest part of the talk will be about how Advocate Health Care will bring positives to the area.

Tomorrow I will make a copy of my speech available in power point, and I also think that radio station WRLR will be broadcasting the Mayors speeches on tape delay, and I will find out the time.

The Train Engine at the Bottom of Round Lake

When I go speak in schools (about 10-15 times a year) I always get asked to tell the legend of the "Train Engine at the Bottom of Round Lake". The kids love the story, I love it as well, plus its an excellent "accurate" history lesson with a potentially mythical ending.

On the site of today's Alpine Country Club used to exist the Armour Ice House. There are two pictures of the actual ice house from 1912 in this post as well.

Ice houses were buildings used to store ice throughout the year, prior to the invention of the refrigerator. The most common designs involved underground chambers, usually man-made, which were built close to natural sources of winter ice such as freshwater lakes (i.e. Round Lake)
During the winter, ice and snow would be taken into the ice house and packed with insulation, often straw or sawdust. It remained frozen for many months, often until the following winter, and could be used as a source of ice during summer months. This could be used simply to cool drinks, or allow ice-cream and sorbet desserts to be prepared.

So how did they create ice? In winter months, ice was chopped from a lake surface and often dragged by sledge to the ice house, and in summer months, was delivered from local ice houses to residences in ice wagons or ice trucks, where it would be stored in an ice box, which was used much like a modern refrigerator. In Round Lake it was not dragged by sledge but was moved via temporary rail lines laid down on the iced over lake. There was an engine that would move the ice back and forth. In addition the engine would take loads up the rail spur to the main line about half a mile away. As home and business refrigeration became more common, ice houses disappeared. The home ice delivery business declined, and was virtually gone by the late 1960s. Our ice house was gone by 1928 as near as I can tell.

You can still see evidence of the rail spur, which is still existent. When our downtown development district gets cooking (it will) one of the goals for this area is to make a nice walking path from the older area of Round Lake into our downtown.

So here's how the train engine got to the bottom of the lake, with the advent of refrigeration the ice house business collapsed quickly in the late 20's and with the depression, business contracted even quicker. So when the decision not to continue with the ice house was made, the question was what do to with the equipment. So legend has it that when the last ice cutting season was finished the engine was parked on the ice, and allowed to fall in when the ice melted.

Veterans Memorial Touch-up

Our Public Works Department completed a project on the NE corner of 134 and Cedar Lake Road in front of the Veterans Memorial. This brick sidewalk matches the other sidewalk accents in our downtown. We will now have handicapped access sidewalks on all four corners of this intersection.

A Story

About a month and a half ago I was running on the Round Lake High School Track on a Sunday afternoon, and had just completed a long (for me) run and was standing on the track drinking water and gasping for breath. The last few laps of my run I had watched four young men walk down the hill from Macgee and across the baseball fields. As they ambled toward the far end of the track I continued to watch them as I was recovering from my run, since my car was parked in the approach to the track with no one else around, the windows were open and my wallet was tucked in the glove compartment.

They walked past my car and disappeared behind the snack bar, I then turned to pick up my shirt and looked back, seconds later, as one of the kids was diving into the passenger side of my car and yanking open my glove compartment and grabing my wallet and took off running.

So did I, my initial thought was to catch the kids and beat the hell out of them. I ran past my car without looking in, I guessed that they had nabbed my phone as well, they had not. Sadly after running 4 miles a few minutes earlier and then having to chase four 14 year olds my closing speed was zip. So I shouted at them hoping they would flip my wallet, so at least I would not have to explain to the first lady how we had to call on all our credit cards and get new ones.

I chased them to the corner of Sunset and Long Lake Drive, before coming to my senses and them vanishing off in the distance. What would I have done if I had caught them? It was only a wallet that had $30 bucks or so in it. Was it worth squaring up to four teens?

So I trudged back to my car, looking on both sides of street to see if my wallet had been discarded and I had just missed it being thrown aside. I found my phone in my car much to my surprise and called the cops. Quite quickly one showed up, and I filed a report.

A few days later the same officer called me an asked me to come into the downtown area and see if I could identify 4 kids who were wandering around by the train station. I sat and watched them and realized that if I said yes that's them, they would be arrested, but here's the thing I was not 100% sure, 60% sure but not 100%. I had seem them from at closest 50 yards away and mostly from behind, as I chased them.

Since then I had pretty much given up on finding the wallet, and had called all my credit cards in and gotten replacements. The thing that bothered me the most was losing my driver license which with all the talk about Identity Theft gave me a chill. Plus I was embarrased as hell since I thought I had more common sense then that as well.

So fast forward to last week, we had some young punks who had been causing trouble in the southern parts of Round Lake and finally crossed the line with a major crime, burglary, our officers nabbed the kids the next day when they got off the school bus. They recovered all the stolen merchandise, and later with the parent of the boys searched the house and lo and behold guess what they found? My wallet, with all the credit cards, my badge and my drivers license.

I found it an interesting feeling to be the victim of a crime, I have felt anger, irritation, embarassment, vengeful, and finally relief that we found the wallet. In addtion we were able to stop these kids and get all the much more valuable things that were stolen in the burglary back as well.

Regional Housing Assessment

NOTE: This was a post from last October which while I was rereading the blog (shamelessly for ideas on what to write this morning) I thought that this illustrates some of the issues facing the county with transportation.

A few weeks ago I attended the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus. There were numerous presentations that gave some big picture looks at the six county Chicagoland Area. One of the talks was on a Regional Housing Needs Assessment for the region. I got the presenter to send me the slide show, so I could present it to the Village Board because I thought it was important for them to have this overview in the back of their minds. I gave the presentation a few meetings ago to them and the public as well.

However there were some very telling slides that explain exactly what we are facing in the terms of "where we live" and "where we work" and to me this illustrates the need for transportation improvements which in turn will/should lure employers closer which will then reduce congestion even more.

The first slide below shows the housing increase from 1990-2000 taken from Census records. Round Lake is not as colorful since a vast majority of our growth has taken place since the 2000 census. However the Round Lake Area did grow thanks to Round Lake Beach. You can clearly see the area on the graph below.

The next image (below) is where the jobs are in 2000. You can see that they are either along the 294, Lake Cook corridors or downtown. As an observation the Baxter facility on Wilson and 120 does not even register and they have 2,300 plus jobs there.

If you then take the two pictures and graph them over each other, you get a look at the Housing vs. Jobs mismatch for the decade of the 90's

What does this mean to us? It's something that any resident intuitively understands while commuting or trying to drive anywhere during rush hours. However I think it illustrates the need for the 120 bypass and traffic improvements in the area. The construction of the 120 bypass will attract more business/jobs to the area which will reduce our commutes and ease congestion. However large employers are not coming to our area if they don't have road improvements, so its a catch 22 type of situation. Which is why the next 2-3 years are so important as we try to get the Route 120 bypass off the drawing board and on to the ground.

Round Lake Bike Patrol Debuts

This fiscal year we have a new addition to the police fleet, bikes! The story of how we got them, reflects the changing environment of the police department. Officer Vanessa Whitten (smiling in the picture) and Officer Jon Zacharias mentioned to the command staff how they thought that a bike patrol would be highly effective in Round Lake.

They researched the idea and submited a formal proposal (including the cost of the program) before the budget process started. These officers did a fine job and their proposal was approved by the police administration and ultimately by the Village Board.

An important component of the officer’s proposal included the reasons why the police department should have a bike patrol. The officers stressed making positive connections with the residents by getting out of the squad cars and seeming more approachable to the residents. The officers also stressed how easy it would be to patrol a festival or downtown area without drawing a lot of attention to themselves and in a stealthly manner.

You might have seen Officer Whitten at the National Night Out event on one of the new bikes. Some of the officers ride recreationally and are looking forward to attending upcoming training to be a bike patrol officer. Keep your eye out as this is a program that the police department will be expanding in the future.

Newspaper Coverage of the Elected Official's Transportation Meeting.

Wednesday night was the elected official meeting at the College of Lake County and there was a lively discussion about priorities for state funding. I can tell you that I spoke up on a couple of areas. Route 60 in general, and 60 & Peterson in particular were the main ones I emphasied.

There was also a lively discussion on transit, where my central points revolved around more parking and double tracking which would give us the ability to run express trains to Chicago on Metra. That would cut an estimated 15 minutes from the 75 minute commute downtown.

In attain under future projects there was a "lively" discussion about Route 53 and its possibility of happening if the state leases or privatized the tollway. Big "if" there however! Of the 800 comments we received from the public comment portion of this process over 20% were about a highway (53) that does not exist. I think its important to at least address the project and get in line if money is to be handed out!

The Daily Herald wrote about the meeting here.

The Summit of Round Lake!

In my continuing quest to visit all of Round Lake, I hit one the tallest thing in the village yesterday! I climbed the water tower coached by our Director of Public Works Davis Clark.

I choose this water tower in the downtown because according to Davis it has railing at the top! Much safer in my mind! The basics of the water tower are 500,000 gallon (opps 750,000) storage with a height of 165 feet.

To climb the tower you go up four flights of stairs to the landings. To make sure you don't plunge to your untimely demise there is a safety harness that hooks into a ratchet system that hooks onto a metal tube that runs up and down the center of the stairs. You have to lean back and apply pressure to the harness to make the ratchet move up or down. If you move off that angle the ratchet won't open and you are restricted to a fall of maybe a foot. I did not attempt to test that out however.

When I got into the tower I was confronted with this type of ladder. If you look closely you can see the metal bar running up the ladder where you hook the harness on. This is the final climb through the ball in a nice tube. One of the climbs was in the gloom, and that was not nice ascending or descending. I did not look up once or look down either, just at the next rung and kept moving.


After about 15 minutes of steady climbing I neared the summit, my sherpa Davis had gone on ahead to open the hatch and he snapped the above picture. At this point even though I was smiling I was panting! I was also recalling my last experience with a Ferris wheel in Lindenhurst and my extreme dislike of heights. Suprisingly when I made it to the top stepping out on the top was remarkedly easy.

I am not sure if this is a smile or a grimace, it might actually be me gasping for breath. Although I think it was harder going down then up. I am going to post more about what I saw on the tower in another post. I was not going to write on the actual ascent but everyone I told about this was more interested in what's inside the tower rather then what I saw. So you get what you ask for.

Save the Date! July 28-30 2006

The Round Lake Streets of Summer Festival is July 28-30, 2006. The Streets of Summer fest for 2006 planning is now under way and let me say this will be the biggest event to date. The entertainment starts on Friday night, with the modern rockers, Local H head-lining the main stage. On Saturday night, Round Lake welcomes the number one Beatles Tribute Band, American English. You will not be disappointed with the realism and costumes that this band brings out.

In addtion there will be carnival rides and food vending by Windy City Carnivals. To accommodate the carnival, the location is being moved from the downtown to the grounds behind Magee School at the intersection of Cedar Lake road and Hart road. The main parking will be held at the Metra parking lot. I will be posting more information on parking as well as times for all events including a car show and a motorcycle show.

The best part is that the entrance to the Streets of Summer is free. If you are interested in volunteering with the 2006 Streets of Summer, please send an e-mail to Sean Gillette. He is our festival chairman!

Bike Trails---An Update

Loyal reader Brad Ogilvie asked me a question a few weeks ago about bike trails. I wrote some of this way back in October but I think some of it bears repeating. The Lake County Forest Preserves have a project called the Millennium Trail which is a trail network connecting an area from the Indiana border to Milwaukee.

Here in Round Lake the trail is coming sooner rather then later, when it does come it will go up through the south side of Valley Lakes, across the back of the new Ryland Development and then it will go up the Com Ed right away into Round Lake Beach. One of the alternatives that I am pushing is a connection throughout the Synnesvedt property to the new Nippersink Forrest Preserve off of 120. If that's the way it goes then we want to explore a way to get some connector trails across 120 and into Madrona and the down all the way to Lakewood homes. We are not sure how right now, but I am going to figure out something. In addition I want it to connect to the future downtown development district.

Patrons of the Arts? Search no More!

A Round Lake Area Resident Melanie Fuhrmann and her husband Ed sent me this link to a wonderful site called the Lake County Performing Arts website. I spent quite a bit of time on the website last night and am VERY impressed, as I am sure you all will be. As all of you know we have plans to develop a cultural arts program and center in our soon to be renovated downtown development district. I will let Ed and Melanie explain it in their words.

My wife Melanie and I have lived in the Round Lake Beach for the last 8 years. She is a professional musician (including 5 years with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Chorus and now teaching at CLC) who was frustrated that so many residents of Lake County thought they had to travel to Chicago for a "real" performing arts event, when in fact Lake County has so much to offer (and not just Ravinia, either).

Part of the problems is that individual performers, as well as small and medium sized groups, frequently don't have much advertising budget, or they rely on volunteers who don't have the experience or contacts. Area groups frequently perform to half-empty venues because so few people get the word. The newspapers usually are short-term in focus, and are only good for those who receive them. Then there's the Lakeland Media vs Pioneer Press aspect, where adjacent communities get different news (and calendars). Interested parties could look up performing arts websites (which have to be found first, and there are literally dozens of them... I know).

Melanie's answer is the recently started website: "Lake County Performing Arts" www.LakeCountyPerformingArts.org

Our hope is that as more and more people gain web reliable web access, the site grows to become the "Look Here First!" resource serving anyone having anything to do with the performing arts in Lake County. Right now, the searchable Events Calendar is the main content.

Other content, such as directories of instructors and schools, performers, venues, etc., is still being populated, but with so many events on the calendar... we didn't want to wait until everything was "perfect" before letting people use the site. Kind of a "soft-start" as opposed to a big official launch.

This is a very very cool site, in fact it went into my favorites instantly. I think this kind of site is what makes the web the single most fascinating thing to happen in my lifetime.

Busy Mayoral Day

Today I have a meeting of the Hospital Taskforce at 10. An interview with for a needs assesement with Mano a Mano at noon. Mano a Mano is the local aid agency located in Round Lake Park. I served a term on the agencies board a few years ago. It's a worthwhile agency that does some needed things for the area.
Then in the afternoon I have two meetings one internal and the other a planning meeting for some issues with our Downtown development district. Lastly I am going to go to the Lakemoor village board meeting at 7 with one of our county board members Bonnie Thompson Carter to make a presentation to them on the "wisdom" of joining the 120 corridor planning council. Other then that I have nothing going on!

The Year that was-- 2005

2005 was the year of the Rooster, and here in Round Lake we have plenty to crow over. We have two new Trustee's Brian Brubaker and Bob Del Prato a new Police Chief in Cliff Metaxa and a new Director of Public Works Davis Clark. Some of the other highlights are:

• We finally adopted a new human resources plan that encompasses employee reviews, job descriptions a fair an equitable pay plan.
• Restructuring of the Police Department is well under way, with a modern efficient and more effective police department starting to emerge.
  
• We are moving full speed ahead on the Downtown Development Project and hope to have it done by 2008 (our 100th anniversary)
  
• We have familiar faces in new places with Terre Eyzk moving up into the Chair of the Planning Commission (my old seat), Hans Zigmund moving up into the Chair of the Architectural Review Committee (ARC) and Steve Skinner moving from the ARC to the Planning and Zoning Commission, former trustee Dale Multerer is now the president of the Police Board.
• Sean Gillette led a wonderful group of people who planned and organized the second annual Streets of Summer festival this summer. Lonnie Brooks headlined and 1,000's attended!
• New commercial development is coming online at the Centerville Commons on Route 60 and Cedar Lake Road, Curran Commons at 120 and Curran, and more development at the corner of 134 and Fairfield to go along with the CVS Pharmacy. More will be happening in 2006 as well.
  
• The construction of a new $7 million 35,000 square foot Police and Public Works Station on the corner of Bacon and Townline road. This facility is big enough for our current population and for our future needs. It was designed and built so it can and could expand if needed in the future.
• Many of the housing projects that we have been hearing about for sometime are finally complete or nearly so, with Valley Lakes, Madrona, Lakewood Homes, Bradford Place, and Silver Leaf Glen reaching that point.
  

On a personal note I am thankful for the opportunity you gave me in April 2005 to lead the village for another four years. Serving as Mayor is the single most rewarding thing I have ever done in my professional life, and I thank you for your support. I aim to make Round Lake the best possible place it can be.

Police and Public Works Complex-- Chapter 1

Many of you have read some of the recent newspaper articles about the Police and Public Works complex. I think its time to give a chronology of what actually went on. I have broken down my posts into 5 chapters. Chapter 1 is how we aquired the land. Chapter 2 will be on how we decided on the building design. Chapter 3 will cover how we bid the building out. Chapter 4 will cover the planning and construction of the project. Chapter 5 will discuss some of the recent events. When there are points of contention in the process, and there are, I will link to the relevant minutes of the board meetings so you can verify for yourself what went on.

Chapter 1
When I was elected it was quickly apparent that we needed a bigger police station and a public works building. Over time the board became comfortable with the concept and we started looking for land. It was difficult to locate a land parcel inside the village boundaries that matched our needs. However we settled on the parcel at the SE corner of Bacon and Townline road. It was a 39 acre parcel owned by the Crowne family. We approached the Crowne Real Estate people and were able to determine a price that met both our needs. The Crowne people eventually sold the 39 acres to us for $30,000 an acre or $1,170,000.

The land was for five central uses:

1. To provide an adequate home for a combined police and public works facility that could be expanded to meet future demands.
2. To facilitate the construction of the extension of Cedar Lake road northwards to Townline road.
3. To bring future Fire District service south of 120 for our residents and recoup some of the land expenses through the sale of the land to the fire department.
4. Provide land for a future maintenance facility for the Round Lake Area Park Districtand recoup some of the land expenses through the sale of the land to the park district.
5. Future sale of 7-9 acres of commercial frontage along the newly extended Cedar Lake Road.

At a similar time the village was deciding to move ahead on three fronts for bonding to accomplish three strategic goals for the village. Goal one was the construction of the Police and Public Works Department, goal two was to bring Sewer and Water to the corner of 120 and Wilson Road and upgrade sewer in some of older areas of the village, and lastly to purchase vacant land in our downtown area to facilitate our transit oriented development program.

To this end we bonded $3 million for the sewer and water projects, $1.5 million for land acquisition for the downtown project, and $6.5 million for the construction of the Police and Public Works facility. In other words we bonded $10.5 million for these projects. We were intending to bond $1 million more for the building construction but when the first pass at the costs by Riley Construction and the Architects Sente Rubel Bosman and Lee came in we were at $6.4 million dollars. More on this in a later chapter. As an aside, the money for the sewer and water bonding will be paid back over time as parcels connect to the sewer and water services. The payback will be in the form of recapture. The money for the land in the downtown will return to the village in the form of a cultural arts center, a new train station and a spectacular downtown along with cash.

At around the same time we were looking at what is now the Bradford Place development with is 170 senior oriented homes at the corner of Curran and 120 by Pulte. I insisted that there be 5 acres of land dedicated to be commercial and that the land be deeded to the village upon annexation. The project was approved and we subsequently resold the land for just under $800,000 or roughly $155,000 an acre. We took that money and applied it towards the purchase of the 39 acre parcel.

Over time the 39 acre parcel will generate the following:

• 39 acres times $30,000 is $1,170,000
• Sale of 5 acres from Bradford Place $790,000 leaves $380,000.
• Sale of 5 acres to Fire District at $30,000 leaves $230,000.
• The sale of the land to the Park District fell apart. (more on that later)
  
• Future sale of commercial land 7-9 acres at "what the market will bear"
• We will still own 10-15 acres for future growth of the police and public work facility.
  

All in all your Board of Trustees and your Mayor did an excellent job acquiring the land for the facility. Even if nothing happens on the 9 acres of commercial we have effectively bought 34 acres of land for $7,000 an acre. When and if we sell the 9 acres we will hopefully have made a profit on the whole land acquisition project and left the village with quite a few benefits. Plus we have 5 acres of commercial at 120 and Curran, that will benefit consumers and the village with tax revenue.

Please note that the prices and costs are close approximations for clarity.

Millennium Trail and Connections to our Neighborhoods

With the newest addition to the Forest Preserve in Round Lake the Nippersink Marsh. Eventually there will be connections from here to the millennium Trail. This trail system connects the entire 6 county area and and parts of Wisconsin as well. Not sure I would do this but you can pedal from the Indiana border to Milwaukee on the trails.

One of the things that I want the village board to study and possibly fund is a way to connect all the various housing developments to the Nippersink Marsh forest preserve and consequently to the trail system. I am not sure how we do this right now, but I suspect our planners can help us. It would also be desirable to have a biking connection to our Downtown Development District. Which I aim to make bike friendly!

Here is some information on the Millennium Trail from the Lake County Forest Preserve

Last Night was a Downtown Development District Meeting

Last night the Downtown Development District Board met and brainstormed out some issues about property and how we wanted to move forward. We decided to go to the next step with two of the plans that were presented. The next step is to have each one of the companies talk us through these concepts. I have a graphic from one of the companies here of their concept here. The fact that it appears here should be in no way construe an endorsement. Overall I think both plans have merit and it will be up to the board to decide on our direction